A Call for Info from Croatia

From: Arno (anonymous@medispecialty.com)
Tue May 21 15:57:58 2002


Dear People, I'm writing you from the capital of Croatia, Zagreb. My girlfriend is in the hospital here, and has been through 8 operations in the last year, mostly dealing with complications after a tumor removal from the rectum. She had serious adhesions of the thin bowel which were cut loose last year, and lived painlessly with a stoma for 6 months. After the "closing operation" adhesions quickly formed again seriously, and blocked the bowel. Another operation to "cut things loose" was performed before 10 days, and she is very slowly starting to eat somethings again. Besides a rectovaginal fistula which showed up before two days (with which I will not bother you here), she is again showing signs of developing pain pointing to adhesions, this time not (yet?) blocking the bowel movement, and not as massive as the ones before. Doctors in this country have a strong tendency to "go for the knife" and will probably show up tomorrow or the day after with the idea for another operation. With all your expertise and knowledge in this field would you recommend to give that another try, or to wait if the pains are bearable and the bowel movement not obstructed? Is there a chance for these pains to get less over time when things heal,or worse if you don't operate in time because of these adhesions spreading, and are there any techniques (yoga, meditations, stretchings, breathings) that might help fight the pain structurally? As medical care in this country is not as advanced as in many of your countries we do have to find out most things by ourselves, and be ahead of our doctors by at least one step all of the time. As the girl in question is the love of my life you will understand the urgency of these questions, and I thank you all in advance for any support and info that you can spare us at these hard moments. In the meantime I'm also wishing all of you a lot of strength and luck in dealing with your problems and suffering from this so hidden ordeal that so many people have to go through without "the world" knowing about it (or caring much, it seems). The caring I spotted on this site, however, leaves some space for hope, and hope is all we have. May you nurture yours,

With Love,

--
Arno

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